Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore addressing at the inauguration of the National Workshop on “Sports for All’’

New Delhi: A national workshop on “Sports for All” was organized here today with the participation of about 80 representatives from Indian Olympic Association, Department of Sports , Sports Authority of India, National Observers , National Sports Federations of high priority and priority disciplines, SGFI and AIUs, Sports Secretaries of the States and the Union Territories, Sports promotion Boards and Sports promotion NGOs.

As the Sports development plays a significant role towards individual development, community development, economic development and national development. One of the key objectives of the workshop was to bring about convergence among all the stakeholders and create a shared vision in order to harness the multiple benefits that sports offer.

Inaugurating the workshop, the Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs and Sports Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore said that a massive overhaul of the entire sporting system is underway with the Khelo India initiative of the government as per the vision of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. He said the Khelo India scheme is not limited to development of stadiums; it will also work for the development of athletes and the nation. Khelo India is about broad-basing sports, providing opportunities for playing, creating competition, picking up talent and also awareness of physical fitness and good health.

The minister said, there is a need to create multiple levels of competition. Unfortunately, when we ask which domestic national competitions it takes some time for people to give an answer. School Games Federation of India (SGFI) has been conducting games at school-level for ages, but nobody knows about it. He said, we are going to launch a new programme, ‘Khelo India School Games’ in December 2017. It will be the best tournament at school-level. It will become a platform for best talent to emerge. He said, the best talent will come to play in Khelo India School Games. Out of these, we would select 1,000 athletes and support them with resources equivalent to Rs 5 lakh per year for eight years. And every year, we will keep adding 1,000 athletes. This will help in creating amazing bench strength in this country across multiple sports.

Secondly to spot the talent, the government has recently launched the National Sports talent search portal on which anyone from anywhere in the country can send us a video of athletes for evaluation of their performance and further training by experts to make them better athletes for domestic and international competitions.

The minister said not only athletes government is also focusing on creating a bank of coaches with constant up gradation of their coaching skills on a regular basis. Col. Rathore said his ministry is creating an IT-based structure where every athlete, from the moment he makes a mark, is tracked. There will be a central database, which can be accessed by anyone who is conducting a competition. The aim is that athletes can focus on their sport without any artificially created hurdles. He said all the coaches, managers and institutions taking care of these athletes need to be reporting to the ministry with their progress on a daily basis.

The Minister said all the stakeholders in sports have to bring professionalism, responsibility and accountability for promotion of sports in the country and the government will have zero tolerance towards misgovernance in sports bodies in different disciplines. On its part the government will hire high performance managers who can deliver the desired results in a professional manner.